Telugu language

Telugu language
Name	Telugu
Nativename	తెలుగు
States	India
Region	Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Yanam
Ethnicity	Telugu people
Speakers	~96 million
Date	2011
Familycolor	Dravidian
Fam2	South-Central
Script	Telugu script
Iso1	te
Iso2	tel
Iso3	tel
Nation	India (Scheduled language)
Minority	South Africa
Agency	Government of Andhra Pradesh, Telugu Academy

Telugu language. It is a major Dravidian language native to the Indian subcontinent, holding the status of one of the scheduled languages of India. Primarily spoken in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, it boasts a rich literary history spanning over a millennium. With approximately 96 million native speakers, it is the most widely spoken member of its language family and the fourth most spoken language in India.

History

The earliest attested inscriptions appear on coins from the 400s BCE, with the first substantial epigraphic record being the Renati Chola inscription from 575 CE. The language's literary history is traditionally held to begin with the 11th-century poet Nannaya, who commenced the translation of the Mahabharata during the rule of the Eastern Chalukyas. The subsequent Vijayanagara Empire became a great patron, with eminent figures like Sri Krishnadevaraya authoring the Amuktamalyada. The medieval period saw the rise of devotional poetry by saints such as Annamacharya and Tyagaraja, the latter being a central figure in the Carnatic music tradition. The modern period was shaped by the influence of British rule in India and reformers like Kandukuri Veeresalingam.

Geographic distribution

It is the official language of the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the union territory of Yanam. Significant diaspora communities exist in neighboring states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra, particularly in cities like Bengaluru and Mumbai. Internationally, substantial speaker populations are found in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom, largely due to historical migration and contemporary employment opportunities. In South Africa, it is recognized as a protected language under the Constitution of South Africa.

Phonology

The sound system is characterized by a distinction between short and long vowels across five places of articulation. It possesses a series of retroflex consonants, a typical feature of Dravidian languages, which are not found in Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi. A notable phonological process is the alternation between dental and alveolar stops, which can change a word's meaning. The language's prosody is heavily influenced by meter, a legacy from its classical poetic forms, and it traditionally avoids consonant clusters at the beginning of syllables.

Grammar

It is an agglutinative language, primarily using suffixes to indicate grammatical relationships. The typical sentence order is subject-object-verb. Nouns are inflected for case, number, and gender, with a distinction between masculine, feminine, and neuter. Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, aspect, person, number, and gender, and they also indicate whether an action is performed for oneself or for others, a feature known as benefactiveness. It employs a system of honorifics, using different verb forms and pronouns to show respect, similar to systems in Japanese and Korean.

Writing system

It is written in an abugida derived from the ancient Brahmi script, sharing a common ancestor with the Kannada script. The script is syllabic, where each character represents a consonant with an inherent vowel sound, which can be modified using diacritic marks. It is known for its rounded shapes, distinct from the more angular Tamil script. The modern form was standardized and popularized by printing presses established during the British Raj, and it is encoded in the Unicode standard.

Literature

The literary tradition is divided into periods: pre-Nannaya, the Age of the Mahabharata poets like Nannaya, Tikkana, and Errana, and the post-15th century modern period. The 16th-century Vijayanagara court produced the epic Manucharitramu by Allasani Peddana. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the advent of the novel and modern poetry, with pioneers like Gurazada Apparao, whose play Kanyasulkam critiqued social issues. Renowned modern poets include Sri Sri, a founder of the Revolutionary Writers' Association.

Status and recognition

It is one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India, granting it official status at the state level and representation on official bodies like the Official Languages Commission. It was designated a Classical language of India by the Government of India in 2008, a status that promotes academic research and cultural preservation. The language is the medium of instruction in schools across its home states and is used in the legislatures of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, as well as in lower courts.